› added 2 years ago

84

TIL about Arunachalam Muruganantham, who made a low cost machine to produce affordable sanitary pads

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xVxng TIL For the movie Godzilla (1998), Rage Against The Machine was commissioned to contribute to the original soundtrack. The resulting track, "No Shelter", explicitly trashes the movie and Hollywood in general
e0VKJ TIL that the smell of the air after a storm is caused by Geosmin: A chemical released by dead soil bacteria. Humans are hyper sensitive to it, capable of detecting at a concentration of 5 parts per trillion. It's theorised in our evolutionary past this helped us seek out water.
WDn9 TIL: Putting candles on birthday cakes dates back to the Ancient Greeks, who often burned candles as offerings to their many gods & goddesses. It was their way to pay tribute to the Greek moon goddess, Artemis. Round cakes symbolized the moon. Candles were added to represent the reflected moonlight.
8ajRa TIL that the left and right hemispheres of the brain must work together to understand puns; the left processes the linguistics, and the right analyses the punchline's double meaning
4ADa TIL Steven Callahan spent 76 days at sea while he drifted 1,800 perilous miles across the Atlantic in a rubber raft, battling starvation, thirst, sharks and storms. He later became the technical adviser for the acclaimed movie Life Of Pi.